DAY 4 | 07/06/2017 – Travel Diary
We slept so deeply beside the stream that not even the thought of having to haul ourselves back up the road—the same one we had joyfully descended yesterday to reach this place—manages to disturb the calm the flowing water and the green shade of the valley have given us. It’s six in the morning and it’s bitterly cold. The humidity is oppressive. After pulling out our modest kit—soap, natural deodorant, a bamboo toothbrush—for a quick wash, it’s time to push the bikes back up to the road and repack all our gear.
A quick glance at the map tells us that this stream is a tributary of the Paratore—an evocative name we’ll hear several times, and one that likely has something to do with silk spinning, once a cornerstone of the economy in various parts of the Messina area. If we followed it downstream, it would take us beneath Tripi.
As tempting as the idea of rolling down the valley might be—though in reality impossible, given the battered state of the streambed—we begin the long, punishing climb back up toward the wind farm we left yesterday. A mistake we pay for with physical effort and mental fatigue, retracing our steps in a forced acchianata, yet one that also allowed us to loosen the tension built up during the frantic preparations for the journey and the first days of finding our rhythm.
Our legs still ache from yesterday’s climb from Novara to Sella Mandrazzi. Pushing a fully loaded mountain bike up a dirt road is hardly ideal recovery, but there’s still a long way to go, and we are immersed in one of the greenest regions of Sicily.
We pass once more through gates and makeshift crossings set up by shepherds and zammattari, weaving among cows and pigs in abundance.
During a break, we come across a four-wheel drive carrying a couple in their fifties. Both are locals, and they tell us about their properties, now abandoned.
The land is too steep, too hard to reach; their children chose a different life. She is extremely thin, yet her speech reveals a strength of character you wouldn’t guess from her appearance. He speaks with the clipped cadence of a mountain man, tight diphthongs, animated gestures—the body language of someone used to communicating with animals. They explain the way to Montalbano several times over, where we’re headed. Then they drive off, leaving us to imagine how different life must be up here in these mountains.
At last we regain the ridge, and with more than one sigh of relief we climb back into the saddle, pedaling on to the entrance of the Malabotta Forest.
The view is breathtaking: Etna smolders to our left, while on the right the horizon is cut by the silhouettes of the Aeolian Islands.
Among Turkey oaks and downy oaks, we ride along a trail through one of the last surviving “natural” forests in Sicily—a true open-air eco-museum, dotted with centuries-old botanical relics. If only these trees could speak. The climb doesn’t relent until Portella Croce Mancina which, at 1,341 meters, is one of the highest points of our entire route.
Leaving the Malabotta Forest behind, we follow a badly damaged road up to the Argimusco plateau, an important pass through the Nebrodi in ancient times and home to the megalithic complex that bears its name. These quartz sandstone rocks, although no significant traces of prehistoric human settlement have been found nearby, have given rise to the most varied theories—some likening the site to an archaeo-astronomical complex in the mold of Stonehenge. As we enter the woods, our thoughts drift to our friends on Salina, the green island whose microclimate, nestled between the twin humps of Monte dei Porri and Monte Fossa delle Felci, enchanted us just a few weeks earlier. Despite it being early June in an exceptionally dry year, we move through a forest lush with green, dressed almost for winter to cope with the humidity and relatively low temperatures as we climb past the thousand-meter mark.
At the junction for Tripi—ancient Abacenum, a Sikel city whose founding is thought to date back eleven centuries before Christ—road signs riddled with bullet holes snap us back to a less mystical, less spiritual reality, suspended somewhere between a cinematic mafia warning and the crude bravado of bored locals. Best to laugh it off.
The SP115, known as the “Tripiciana”, has been the road connecting Tindari to the Greek settlements of Taormina and Naxos since the first century AD, passing through what are now Randazzo, Roccella Valdemone, Moio Alcantara, and Francavilla di Sicilia. It’s said that in the 1960s, when the provincial road was built, they simply laid asphalt over the Roman paving stones. The coastal route from Tindari to Naxos is longer and, at the time, would have had to thread its way through the harsh slopes of the Peloritani, since the present-day coastal road between Rometta and Messina did not yet exist.
On the descent toward Montalbano—now visible among wild rose bushes—swarms of flies pursue us all the way into town. Oblivious to the fact that such enthusiasm is probably due to us not having washed properly in over two days, we make our triumphant entrance into the deserted square.
After a generous plate of maccheroni and half a kilo of bread, we collapse, exhausted, onto the benches opposite the town hall. A rather small but remarkably lively character approaches us shortly after and asks, “Are you the cyclists?” With one eyebrow clearly raised, I glance first at our bikes, then at Marco, then back at the stranger, and reply—slightly embarrassed—“Yes, we’re the cyclists.”
We had been in touch with the municipal administration of Montalbano through Councillor Ruggeri and had received a welcome offer of hospitality. You can imagine our surprise when this sprightly figure—who has just invited us inside the town hall to collect the keys to an apartment—answers to the title of “Mayor.” Having handed us the keys to our overnight accommodation and arranged to meet us again at dinner time, after a campaign rally—election season is in full swing—Filippo Taranto, Mayor of Montalbano Elicona, takes his leave with practiced nonchalance, sparing us any further embarrassment.
